A committee comprised of Westport school administrators, teachers and parents is reviewing whether a book should be removed from the Coleytown Middle School library.
The Challenged Materials Committee is reviewing the request to remove “The Lovely Bones” by Alice Sebold, but it has not made a recommendation to Schools Superintendent Elliott Landon, who makes the ultimate decision.
Lynne Shain, assistant superintendent for curriculum and staff development, said the parent of a sixth-grade girl at Coleytown Middle filed a challenge form requesting the book be removed from the library.
The committee, of which she is chair, interviewed the school library media specialist, the challenging parent, and a Westport resident who used to be an American Library Association member with experience in challenged materials, she said.
The committee needs to formally write its recommendation to Landon, she said, which could happen in the near future.
“We’re close to (writing the recommendation),” she said. “It’s just a matter of the wording.”
The parent, Shain said, read “The Lovely Bones,” and thought it was right for an adult audience but was not appropriate for a sixth-grader.
In the first chapter of the book, published in 2002, she said, a 14-year-old girl is walking home from school when she is abducted, raped and killed by a neighbor.
“The author shows amazing restraint considering the graphic nature of the events,” she said.
The parent felt it could upset her daughter, Shain said, and it was beyond her maturity level.
The parents have acknowledged the students at Coleytown Middle have a range of reading skills, she said, and have considered with the committee other ways to flag the book so readers could be counseled if the “frightening material” upset them.
“The Lovely Bones” is also available at the Westport Public Library, but Library Director Maxine Bleiweis said the book has not been challenged there.
Shain said she and others cannot remember a book in a school library being challenged.
Several years ago, she said, a video titled “If These Walls Could Talk” about abortion was challenged.
The video was used in history class at Staples High School, she said, and parents were upset over the process how they could opt their children out of seeing the video.
A letter alerting parents about the video was sent home, she said, and if school officials did not hear from the parents, their student was permitted to see the video.
The video ultimately was not removed from the class.
The difference between the video and the book, Shain said, is that the book is not part of a class and is kept on the shelves in the library.
The material in a play produced at Staples several years earlier was also challenged, she said, but the superintendent again ruled in favor of the educators.
What?
I’m surprised there has been no commentary on such an important issue, yet a tear-down warrants multiple responses. Maybe it’s because of the Holiday Season & minds are elsewhere but where is the cry of censorship and outrage? That a lone parent whom has issues about sensitive topics yet again says that her child maybe frightened or uncomfortable by the subject, therefore the book/movie should be removed for the entire school.
While every parent needs to guide their child in the choices made, at some point their child is going to make their own decisions, right or wrong.
Part of being in the school community is having the opportunities to explore topics that are in the public domain. Banning a book or movie does little to shield the child from reality, hovering parents do little to help their child mature and does not allow for mature well informed decisions to be formed.
The book, The Lovely Bones is a well written poignant essay of relationships, life & death. My early teen daughter read it as soon as it came out & recommended it to me to read. I couldn’t put it down until I finished it, much as people speak about the Harry Potter series, is this banned from the school system as well?
Ms. West,
I agree. Where is the indignation and public outcry? I fear, however, it may not be due to the holidays. There seem to be many residents in town who believe that the schools need to make it difficult for our children to read thought-provoking and mature literature.
I admit that I have not read Alice Sebold
Having a daughter who is in 8th grade at Coley Middle and a son at Staples, I have personally seen a wide variety of reading interests and abilitities. Books for this age group are vastly different then they were when I was in junior high school.Our society today is very different and our children are exposed to many more situations, from many different forms of media, not just from the school library.It is up to us as parents to set the tone,whether it be books, movies, videos, music etc.I ran into a similar situation this summer with my daughter who is an avid reader. We were at Barnes and Noble buying summer books and she came across one that she immediately said she wanted to read because many of her friends had read it. I read the introduction,saw that it was on a very tough subject and told her that I would read it first. I did, I swallowed hard and then let her read it because it offered so many teaching moments and discussion points. This book is in the CMS library currently. Would I have let her read it in 6th grade?Probably not-I would have told her it wasn’t time for it yet.Books today for this age group have gone far beyond the Nancy Drew stage. Handled correctly at home,they offer a wealth of dialog possibilities. But ban them from libraries-absolutely not.Trust me-the book won’t go away as a result.
Barbara Wiederecht